News:

"There is a terrible desperation to the increasingly pathetic rationalizations from the climate denial camp. This comes as no surprise if you take the long view; every single undone paradigm in history has died kicking and screaming, and our current petroleum paradigm 🐉🦕🦖 is no different. The trick here is trying to figure out how we all make it to the new ⚡ paradigm without dying ☠️ right along with the old one, kicking, screaming or otherwise." - William Rivers Pitt

Even before #HurricaneMaria, #PuertoRico was home to a severe economic + humanitarian crisis. While it's crucial to help the island recover from the devastation of this hurricane, we absolutely must also use this opportunity to call attention to the ongoing colonization, oppression + exploitation of the Puerto Rican people by the US government and Wall Street.

Speaking of Wall Street, the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, which is supposed to supervise the financial markets, just announced a change in policy to rely less on supervising the industry directly. Instead it will rely more on banks self-reporting their own crimes, which sounds like a foolproof plan. Lee Camp breaks this down. Then, Natalie McGill joins Lee at the desk to discuss how Congress doesn’t think twice about war money, yet may end a program that ensures medical care for poor children.

Then Naomi Karavani reports on a Supreme Court case that may end collective bargaining through for workers against their employers.

Donald Trump’s allies in Congress make desperate panic move as Robert Mueller closes in on him

Bill Palmer Updated: 3:29 pm EDT Sat Oct 14, 2017

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If you’re looking for a sign of just how thoroughly Special Counsel Robert Mueller is closing in on Donald Trump, you can start with the fact that Mueller spent all day interviewing Trump’s former White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus on Friday. But if you really want confirmation of how close Mueller is getting, take a look at the manner in which Trump’s Republican allies in Congress are suddenly hitting the panic button in pronounced fashion.

Nineteen Republicans in the House and Senate have signed onto legislation which would force Mueller to essentially conduct his Trump-Russia investigation in public (link). This is, of course, a completely insane notion. As prosecutors are building a complex case involving dozens of subjects, witnesses and potential targets, various aspects of the case are kept secret for good reason. In fact Mueller has been keeping certain details hidden from Republicans in Congress so they can’t sabotage him by publicly leaking those details.

This legislation has virtually no chance of succeeding, as it would require 51 votes in the Senate and 218 votes in the House, yet it only appears to have 19 votes between them. Nonetheless, it’s a clear attempt on the part of Trump’s Republican allies – notorious charlatans Bob Goodlatte and Steve King among them – at taking one last desperate shot at preventing Mueller from being able to take down Trump. Moreover, these Republicans are giving away a lot by hitting the panic button at this particular time.

This is the clearest signal yet that Donald Trump’s allies now fear the Trump-Russia investigation is rapidly reaching the point at which there’s no turning back, and Trump’s eventual ouster will be all but guaranteed. It’s not a coincidence that these nineteen Republicans have signed onto this desperate legislation just as Priebus has begun meeting with Robert Mueller in a manner which suggests Priebus has flipped on Trump.

Dismissing victims is not unusual for this administration and for the EPA. The agency's new chief, Scott Pruitt, spends his time on the road meeting privately with corporate CEOs responsible for these toxic waste sites. He then takes their wish-lists back to Washington so he can draft new ways to roll back the environmental protections they loathe.

But local community leaders, with few exceptions, have not been given the opportunity to talk with Pruitt.

It is such a unique time to be alive today, given Donald Trump, the state of America, geopolitics, it would be interesting to see what great American heroes like F.D.R. Henry Wallace and Harry Truman have to say about the situation regarding billionaires taking over the government...

Thom brings us a 70 year old clip of President Harry Truman doing just that and in this speech we get to see that the 1% trying to control politics isn't anything new.

Republican Senator Bob Corker has so thoroughly had it with Donald Trump’s demented antics, he’s willing to risk derailing his own party’s tax cuts for the wealthy in order to march Trump toward the door. Corker grabbed a CNN reporter’s microphone this morning and announced that he regrets having supported Trump during the election, accusedTrump of being a consistent liar, and stated that Trump was not a good role model for children. Let’s just say that Trump didn’t take it well.

As Donald Trump was heading into lunchtime on Tuesday, he only had to worry about two prominent Republican Senators who have had enough of his crap. But by late Tuesday afternoon, a third GOP Senate voice had begun publicly calling Trump out on his unsuitability and dangerous antics. Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona announced that he won’t seek reelection in 2018 – and then he immediately took to the Senate floor and delivered a blistering attack on Trump.

Jeff Flake declared “I have children and grandchildren to answer to, and so, Mr. President, I will not be complicit or silent.” He explained “It must also be said that I rise today with no small measure of regret. Regret because of the state of our disunion. Regret because of the disrepair and destructiveness of our politics. Regret because of the indecency of our discourse. Regret because of the core regret because of the coarseness of our leadership. Regret for the compromise of our moral authority. And by our, I mean all of our complicity in this alarming and dangerous state of affairs. It is time for our complicity and our accommodation of the unacceptableto end.”

The Senate voted 51-50 to repeal a rule that would have made it easier for consumers to sue the financial institutions that defraud them. The move is "outrageous," says white-collar criminologist Bill Black. "It should be a national scandal, and require resignations in disgrace".

This is not a time for “patience” — Donald Trump is not fit for office. It is evident that there is zero reason to believe “he can be a good president.”

Whether by the nature of Mr. Trump’s relationship with Vladimir Putin and Russia, his willingness to exploit the office of the Presidency for his personal gain and treat the government like a family enterprise, his conduct during Charlottesville, his decision to pull out of the Paris climate accords, or his seeming determination to take the nation to war, he has violated the Constitution, the office of the Presidency, and the trust of the public. He is a clear and present danger to the United States of America.

Republican Senator Bob Corker, Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, referred to the Trump White House as a day care center, and observed that this president has put us “on the path to World War III.” This comes following reports that Trump’s own Secretary of State referred to him as a “moron” and that Chief of Staff John Kelly and Secretary of Defense James Mattis have an agreement not to leave Trump home alone for fear of what he could do. And we have seen other Republican Senators, including Senators Sasse and Flake, express their own profound concerns.

If Trump has lost the trust of the members of his own administration and leading members of his own party, surely it is time to act.

An accounting of his record to date leads to the same conclusion. He is turning his back on Lady Liberty by holding immigrant children hostage. He is actively sabotaging the Affordable Care Act — a law he is constitutionally obligated to faithfully execute — while seeking to strip away health care coverage that will leave millions of Americans to choose between life and bankruptcy. He is repealing clean air protections and unleashing polluters, even as increasingly catastrophic natural disasters supercharged by our warming planet ravaged the country throughout the summer — from hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria, to the wildfires that have raged across California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Montana. He has threatened to reduce aid for millions of American citizens in Puerto Rico who are struggling to survive without drinkable water or electricity — a move that would be a total dereliction of his duty. And every day, Americans are left bracing for a Twitter screed that could set off a nuclear war. These actions represent systemic attacks on our nation’s future. They endanger every single one of your constituents. That’s why you have a duty to speak out.

There is no moral reason to remain silent about this. Constitutional experts like Noah Feldman have already laid out clear legal and historical foundations for impeachment. Founding Father Alexander Hamilton, a co-author of the Federalist Papers — and an immigrant himself — argued that “high crimes and misdemeanors” could be defined as “abuse or violation of some public trust.” This president has clearly already exceeded these standards. Congress has impeached past presidents for far less.

While we know that Republicans do not seem prepared to pursue impeachment even as members in their own ranks openly question Trump’s fitness for office, we are all working hard to ensure Democrats will take back the House and Senate in 2018.

Given Trump’s total lack of fitness for office, the question of impeachment becomes a very real issue should we succeed in our midterm goal. That makes it imperative for every Governor of every state, and every mayor of every city, to acknowledge where they stand. This question affects the lives of every single American. They deserve to hear whether or not our party is willing to do what is necessary to protect them and their families. This is not an academic exercise. The very stability of the Republic is at stake.

So, by way of this letter, I am asking you today to make public your position on the impeachment of Donald Trump, and to urge your federal representatives to remove him from office at once. Every day he remains in reach of the nuclear codes is another day for him to menace the citizens you serve and protect. Your constituents deserve to know they are represented by people in every level of government who have the patriotism and political courage to stand up and take action when it is so desperately needed. This is not a time to give in to an establishment that insists on acting the way the establishment always does, with “patience” or “caution.” It is an unprecedented moment, and it calls for extraordinary measures. We cannot remain fixated on what is politically smart. We have to do what is morally right.